Camping stove giant Jetboil, Inc, a division of Johnson Outdoor Products, announced a new bio-fuel powered ultralight camping stove today that burns biomass, eliminating the need to carry or resupply camping gas canisters. The new stove called “The Jetboil BioBoil”, is designed to efficiently burn methane derived from human waste.

Designed for use in crowded national parks, forests, and on national scenic trails, “the BioBoil will help preserve our National Wilderness Areas for future generations,” says JetBoil co-founder and Chief Leave No Trace Officer Dwight Aspinwall, where the accumulation and disposal of solid human waste is an increasingly overwhelming and complex economic issue. “The Jetboil BioBoil camping stove provides a unique and environmentally sound way to dispose of human waste by tapping it a renewable energy source and reducing it to sanitized ash which can be safely dispersed in backcountry areas with minimal impact.

Available in a Group Cooking System (GCS) and a Personal Cooking System (PCS) sizes, the BioBoil stove system is backwardly compatible with all existing JetBoil stove systems. Shaped like a regular Jetboil gas canister, the BioBoil Fuel Cell unscrews at the bottom enabling users to scoop solid waste into its internal recycling compartment. The screw off-bottom also serves doubly duty as a cat hole trowel for those occasions when human waste burial is preferred in backcountry areas with reduced visitor usage.

Jetboil’s R&D team had to surmount multiple technical challenges in order to develop the BioBoil Fuel Cell, creating what is essentially a bio-reactor powered by human waste. “The breakthrough,” says Jetboil co-founder and R&D chief Perry Dowst, “was adding a synthetic catalyst to the fuel cell canister that accelerates the breakdown of human waste into methane gas which can be used for cooking. The catalyst transforms solid human waste into methane in just 10-12 hours, enabling enough fuel production to make it possible to cook dinner with waste collected on the morning of the same day. Methane is such a high power gas, that it only requires 4 ounces of human waste to produce enough gas to boil 2 cups of water, the amount needed to rehydrate most cook-in-a-pouch camping meals.” Still, says Dowst, “we recommend that hikers and campers eat a high fiber diet to ensure an adequate fuel supply.”

Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior and former CEO of REI says “Jetboil’s BioBoil represents an important step in protecting our wilderness heritage from overuse impacts and is a remarkable leap forward that will promote the adoption of Leave No Trace principles by all Americans. In other words, this is some cool shit!”

The new Jetboil BioBoil will be available in June of 2014. Jetboil also plans to announce a new generation of lanterns and methane powered recharging products for cell phones, GPS units, cameras and other backcountry gadgets, also powered by solid human waste, later in the winter of 2014.

26 comments

Just read this to my son, who happens to have been born on April Fool’s Day (he is turning 17)…I told him that we were thinking of getting him one of these for his birthday. His reaction? “That’s disgusting!” I love April Fools Day!

Philip. If we just gave everyone in the world a Jet Boil like this one the worlds energy problem would be solved. We would all just tune into section hiker every day to be resupplied fuel from all the waste Philip shovels daily at us anyway.

LMAO, but, I do know how to build a small Biomass methane gas unit, but it would weigh in at somewhere near 14 pounds. Farmers in Vermont used to use Methane systems derived from the Cow manure their Cows created to power Generators which provided electricity for Lights and the Milking Machines and Refrigerators.. And back in the 70’s I bought a book by a Lecturer from India who spoke at Ohio State, who outlined all the possiblities of methane gas productions and use, which at that time was used in hundreds of Villages in India to power generators at night in small Villages where the people sat around and watched the Community T.V. and or individual Radios at home..Most are against the local Ordances here at home in the States, so the ability to build one for home use is rather slim. But it works..and the Power Companies can’t make any money off it.

All the farms around here should have a Biomass methane gas unit. They work and get rid of fly and odor issues not to mention using the green house gas methane to power their farms. I made a batch methane digester years ago out of a 55 and a 30 gallon barrel.

Not sure if I would have cared if this were true…because Jetboil has poor customer service, shotty welding, and their fins are an engineering and safety disaster. Those of you who love Jetboil haven’t had your fins melt off – yet.

OK…I’m reading this three weeks after the fact, so I was buying into it hook, line, and sinker, until I got to “…we recommend that hikers and campers eat a high fiber diet to ensure an adequate fuel supply.” THEN I had to go back and check the date it was posted.

Very well written – one of the more believable April Fool’s jokes I’ve seen.